Aletta Jacobs

Physician, activist

• Born: February 9, 1854
• Birthplace: Sappemeer, Netherlands
• Died: August 10, 1929
• Place of death: Baarn, Netherlands

Also known as: Aletta Henriette Jacobs

Education: University of Groningen

Significance: Aletta Jacobs was a Dutch physician and activist. She became one of the first women to practice medicine in the Netherlands. She opened a birth control clinic in the country and was an important leader in the suffrage and peace movements.

Background

Aletta Henriette Jacobs was born on February 9, 1854, in Sappemeer, in the Netherlands. Her parents were Abraham Jacobs, a doctor, and Anna de Jongh. The family was Jewish and maintained strong ties with other Jewish families in the region. As a child, Jacobs accompanied her father when he visited patients at their homes. These experiences made her realize that she wanted to become a physician like her father.

However, at the time, education for girls and boys differed. A girl's education prepared her to take care of the household as a wife and mother, and did not include subjects such as mathematics, history, Greek, and Latin. This did not appeal to Jacobs, as she wanted to become a physician. Jacob's father lobbied the local boys' school, and it allowed her to take these courses. Her parents were also instrumental to her studies.

After high school, Jacobs received career guidance and support from family friends. They urged her to train as a pharmacist and provided her with letters of recommendation for entry to the University of Groningen. Jacobs lived with her brother after high school. He worked as a pharmacist and taught her the skills of the profession. In 1879, she passed her pharmacist exam.

The University of Groningen eventually allowed her to attend classes there in 1871. She received permanent admission in 1872. She was one of the first women admitted to the college. Jacobs graduated in 1876 with degrees in mathematics and physics. She then attended medical school in Amsterdam. Jacobs experienced much criticism from her professors who believed that women should not be physicians. She did not let this deter her, and she earned her medical degree on April 2, 1878, and medical doctorate on March 8, 1879. Her college experience piqued her interest in social justice.

Life's Work

Jacobs then visited London to receive clinical training. There, she met other like-minded individuals who introduced her to activism, feminism, and the suffrage movement. She only spent a few months in London and returned to Amsterdam later in 1879. She opened a medical practice in Amsterdam and focused on women's health. She taught classes on hygiene and infant care. She also hosted free clinics for poor women.

Jacobs began to distribute birth control, although she received opposition. She introduced the pessary, also known as the diaphragm, to the Netherlands. She had read about the device in 1882. Many women at her free clinic requested birth control from her, but she was unable to provide it at first. Eventually, she devised a sort of medical trial in which she gave a few women a pessary under the condition that they come back to her for regular examinations to test its effectiveness and effects on the body. After she deemed the device to safe and effective, she began to offer it to all of her patients.

From that point on, Jacobs focused her practice on birth control and launched a campaign to make contraception available to women in the Netherlands. Her clinic predated the ones that opened throughout the United States and United Kingdom by more than thirty years. American birth control activist Margaret Sanger and British advocate Marie Stopes both traveled to the Netherlands to meet Jacobs and learn about her work distributing contraceptives.

Jacobs began her campaign for suffrage when she attempted to vote in 1883. At the time, women did not have the right to vote, but many were beginning to organize to fight for the right. In 1894, she helped establish the Dutch women's suffrage alliance known as Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht. She was named president of the group in 1903 and became acquainted with members of the National Woman Suffrage Association in the United States and the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in the United Kingdom. In 1904, Jacobs was one of the founders of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (later renamed the International Alliance of Women). Jacobs became a well-known leader in the suffrage movement and decided to retire from her medical practice in 1904 to focus on getting women the right to vote. She worked with several prominent suffragists, such as American Carrie Chapman Catt.

Jacobs became an active pacifist after the beginning of World War I in 1914. She asked women from around the world to protest the war. Jacobs and a group of women organized the International Congress of Women in the Hague in 1915. Jacobs invited members of the Woman's Peace Party, which included many suffragists. American activist Jane Addams led the meeting and organized a group to present peace resolutions to various countries. Jacobs was part of this group that spoke with several European leaders about peace.

Jacobs then split her time between the peace and suffragist movements. Women in the Netherlands finally obtained the right to vote in 1919—the year before women gained this right in the United States. Jacobs moved to the Hague in 1919 and helped set up the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She continued to promote peace and work for equal rights for women until her death in 1929. She died during a visit to Baarn, in the Netherlands.

Impact

Jacobs accomplished many firsts throughout her lifetime. Not only was she one of the first women in the Netherlands to become a practicing physician, but she also helped women obtain contraceptives decades earlier than in the United States and United Kingdom. Jacobs was a prominent leader in the suffragist movement, helping Dutch women gain the right to vote in 1919. She also worked to promote world peace.

Personal Life

Jacobs married a Dutch grain merchant and legislator named Carel Victor Gerritsen in 1892. They had one child, who did not survive long after birth. After Gerritsen died from cancer in 1905, Jacobs fully devoted herself to the suffrage movement.

Bibliography

"Aletta Jacobs." Brooklyn Museum, www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner‗party/heritage‗floor/aletta‗jacobs. Accessed 19 Jan. 2018.

"Aletta H. Jacobs (1854–1929)." AlettaJacobs.org, www.alettajacobs.org/atria/Aletta‗Jacobs/English.html. Accessed 19 Jan. 2018.

Feinberg, Harriet. "Aletta Henriette Jacobs, 1854–1929." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, 1 Mar. 2009, jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/jacobs-aletta-henriette. Accessed 19 Jan. 2018.

"Jacobs, Aletta." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2004, www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/jacobs-aletta. Accessed 19 Jan. 2018.

Simkin, John. "Aletta Jacobs." Spartacus Educational, Aug. 2014, spartacus-educational.com/USAWjacobsA.htm. Accessed 19 Jan. 2018.

Windsor, Laura Lynn. Women in Medicine: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2002, pp. 107–08.